Overall thoughts
Clearly, we started a little slow on the physical stakes. They got on the front foot quite early and the class of the spine capitalised on the momentum their big guys got. I'm not sure at what point are you rescuing the game. I don't know, maybe I could have made changes earlier in the game perhaps. But I didn't think it was fatigue that was causing the issue. I just felt everything was rolling their way and even at times when we made a tackle or the ball bounced it was one of those days when it bounced the other way and that was due to us not being urgent or purposeful enough at times.
Positives
Erm... another opportunity next week. I thought most of the second half we were in a battle. That's when the opposition has the scoreboard covered at that stage but we found out about the group sticking together and we managed to string a few plays together at times and send a little bit back their way, but they had a lot more plays than us first half and it's always hard chasing your tail.
What he learned
We started a bit slow in our last pre-season match and then did so again. That's probably something to think about but we constantly review on my own decision-making. It's round one, and it's important for sure, we're disappointed in the performance but you can read a lot into it and you can certainly read too much into it. We'll dust ourselves off and review it on Saturday.
